The PC's 25th birthday
2nd August 2006

The IBM PC, which was launched in 1981 celebrates it 25th birthday in August and has made such a big difference and has moulded the world we live in today.

The PC's biggest achievement was making computers cheaper, widely available and useful. The PC led to economies of scale and thus led to reduced prices and enabled the PC to democratise computing.

A great benefit from the PC comes from the innovation that has come as a result of it. Fire sharing, communications, online commerce, search engines to find almost anything are some of the examples of what has come about from the PC.

Nevertheless, when coming to extending these benefits to people all over the world, the PC is not so useful. The developing world are not able to benefit as much as developed nations.

The solution to this problem in fact seems to be the mobile phone, which is cheaper, simpler, more reliable (and more mobile!) As a result, poorer people are able to get hold of mobile phones, which can have web-browsers, calculators, alarms and other computing functions. Mobile phones are being used by Zambian merchants for banking, Senegalese farmers to monitor prices and South African health workers to update records.

The Economist magazine argues that the mobile phone will carry the 'dream of the "personal computer" to its conclusion' but this may not be the case. PC's are far more complex and can carry out far more sophisticated actions that could not be possible using phones.

And so, the PC should live on for many years to come.

Sources - summary of:
The Economist - The dream of the personal computer